Give Work

Charity is not the answer. Work is. Leila Janah, social entrepreneur and founder of

Samasource, is shaping the future of business: give work and access to income,

and empower the world's most destitute citizens with the resources to change their

lives forever.

When asked if they'd rather receive aid or work, the world's poorest people

choose work every time. According to Leila Janah, giving dignified, steady,

fair-wage work is the most effective way to eradicate poverty. Samasource, a

nonprofit she founded with the express purpose of outsourcing work from the

tech industry to the bottom billions, has provided over $10 million in direct

income to tens of thousands of people the world had written off, changing the

trajectory of their lives for the better. Janah and her team go into the world's

poorest communities--from the refugee camps of Kenya to rural Arkansas to the

blighted neighborhoods of California--and train people to do digital work from

companies like Google, Walmart, and Microsoft.

Picking up where Dambisa Moyo's Dead Aid leaves off, Give Work debunks

traditional and cutting edge aid models and literature--and then, critically, offers

solutions. Based on Janah's firsthand experience, from a school for the blind in

Ghana to the World Bank, she has tested various Give Work business models in all

corners of the world, offering a blueprint to change it for good. A

Harvard-educated former management consultant, Janah shares her

entrepreneurial journey as well as the poignant stories of thousands who have

benefited from Samasource's work.

We can end extreme poverty. And in Give Work, Leila Janah shows readers that

the best way is to give people economic agency through work. Give work and you

give the poorest people on the planet a chance at happiness. Give work, and you

give people the freedom to choose how to develop their own communities. Give

work, and you create infinite possibilities.